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Loading mechanism, drive unit, and information processing apparatus

Inactive Publication Date: 2007-04-05
RICOH KK
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0035] Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a loading mechanism in which the above-described disadvantages are eliminated, a drive unit including such a loading mechanism, and an information processing apparatus including such a drive unit.
[0036] A more specific object of the present invention is to provide a loading mechanism that is less subject to breakage and has a long useful service life.
[0037] Another more specific object of the present invention is to provide a loading mechanism including a tray with increased rigidity so as to prevent the disengagement of rail grooves from rails or the breakage of the tray itself even if an external force is applied to the tray at the time of unloading, the loading mechanism being realized without loss of its assembling efficiency or an increase in the number of components.

Problems solved by technology

However, this type of optical disk drive unit develops trouble easily if an impact (external force) is applied to the tray 100 when the tray 100 is ejected from the loading base 2 as shown in FIG. 5.
As a result, in those conventional drive units, the rotation body remains totally unaffected even if the ejected tray is forcibly stopped, pushed, or pulled.
The above-described conventional drive units, however, cannot prevent failure from occurring if an impact is applied to the tray ejected from the loading base from its sideward directions (the X1 and X2 directions in FIG. 5).
As a result, the tray may disengage from the engagement part of the loading base, and in the worst case, the tray may be broken.
In any case, it becomes impossible to perform tray loading and unloading operations, thus causing great trouble to users.
In these cases, a wrong use of the drive unit or unintentional contact with the drive unit by the user may cause a great external force to be exerted on the tray ejected outside the drive unit.
However, if an external force is exerted on the ejected tray held only by the two cylindrical bosses, a great (surface) pressure is exerted on the contact points of the tray and the frame (bosses) because the area of the contact points is small.
As a result, concave plastic deformations may be generated following (affected by) the shapes of the bosses, or the bosses formed on the frame may be broken.
This may result in problems such as a shortened useful service life of the entire loading mechanism and an increase in power consumption due to a large load on the tray-driving motor.

Method used

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  • Loading mechanism, drive unit, and information processing apparatus
  • Loading mechanism, drive unit, and information processing apparatus
  • Loading mechanism, drive unit, and information processing apparatus

Examples

Experimental program
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first embodiment

[0076] A description is given, with reference to FIGS. 8 through 13C, of a first embodiment of the present invention. In the following description, the same elements as those of FIGS. 6A through 7B are referred to by the same numerals, and a description thereof is omitted. FIG. 8 is a schematic perspective view of a drive unit 200 including a loading mechanism according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The drive unit 200 includes a tray 80 and a drive unit main body 90 containing an optical pickup (not shown in the drawing) The tray 80 can accommodate an optical disk 210 as a CD-type information recording medium such as a CD-R (CD-recordable) or a CD-RW (CD-rewritable). The tray 80 is containable in the drive unit main body 90 so that the optical pickup records information on the optical disk 210 placed on the tray 80, and reproduces or erases information recorded on the optical disk 210.

[0077] The tray 80 is adapted so as to be movable in the directions indicated ...

second embodiment

[0123] A description is given below of a second embodiment of the present invention. In the second embodiment, the same elements as those of FIGS. 1 through 5 are referred to by the same numerals, and a description thereof is omitted. The optical disk drive unit of the second embodiment includes a tray 1 and the loading base (frame) 2 previously described in FIGS. 1 through 5. The optical disk drive unit of the second embodiment is characterized by the configuration of the tray 1. Accordingly, in the second embodiment, only the configuration and the function of the tray 1 of the optical disk drive unit are described as variations, and a description of the loading base 2 is omitted.

[0124]FIG. 15 is a bottom plan view of a first variation of the tray 1 of an optical disk drive unit according to the second embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 15, a rail groove 3 is formed on each side end of the bottom surface of the tray 1 along the Y-axis as in the above-described ...

third embodiment

[0153] A description is given below, with reference to FIG. 20, of an information processing apparatus according to a third embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the drive unit 200 of the first embodiment or the drive unit of the second embodiment may be applied to a personal computer (PC) 61 as an information processing apparatus. In the following, the drive unit 200 of the first embodiment is applied to the PC 61 for convenience of description. The PC 61 includes a monitor 65 and a computer main body 69 to which input devices 67 including a keyboard 68a and a mouse 67b are connected. The computer main body 69 houses a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, an I / O interface, and a hard disk.

[0154] The computer main body 69 includes the drive unit 200 as well as a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive unit 63. The drive unit 200 may be of an integrally housed type or a so-called built-in type.

[0155] The PC 61 includes the drive unit 200 having a long useful service life as previously describe...

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PUM

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Abstract

A loading mechanism includes a frame and a tray on which an information recording medium is placeable. The tray includes a groove part and is movable between a first position where the information recording medium is contained completely inside the frame and a second position where the information recording medium is exposed completely outside the frame. The loading mechanism further includes at least three projections arranged on the frame at predetermined intervals along the sliding directions of the tray. The projections include first and second guide and support parts forming the first and second ends of the arrangement of the projections. The first and second guide and support parts come into substantially point or linear contact with the groove part of the tray so as to guide and support the tray when the tray is in the second position.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention generally relates to loading mechanisms, drive units, and information processing apparatuses, and more particularly to a loading mechanism for loading an information recording medium in a predetermined position and unloading the information recording medium from the predetermined position, a drive unit including the loading mechanism, and an information recording apparatus including the drive unit. The drive unit may be an optical disk drive unit for recording data on, reproducing data from, or rewriting the data of an information recording medium (hereinafter referred to also as an optical disk or simply as a disk). [0003] 2. Description of the Related Art [0004] Recently, the digitization of information apparatuses and the accompanying rapid development of multimedia apparatuses have caused an increase in the amount of information (data) processed. This requires information recording media to...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): G11B17/04
CPCG11B17/056
Inventor KIMURA, MASAFUMIYAMASHIRO, TOSHIHIRO
Owner RICOH KK